On my to-do list today was to wrap presents. Part of my weekend to-do list is to clean out the room where all of the presents are, so I wanted to get them wrapped and out of the way before Lily accidentally peeks at them.

This year was supposed to be a really small Christmas. We are going to Disney World a few weeks after the holiday and were going to take Lily on the Pirate and Pals Firework Voyage, which was going to be her big gift, running us about $160. Well, after looking into it further and talking with a wonderful Cast Member at Disney, we decided that Lily is a little too young to really enjoy all that it has to offer – especially for that price! So, although I thought in October I was done shopping, I decided to spend a little more! Realistically, she needs none of it!

I love to spoil that kid! She plays with all of her toys and loves them. There are certain things she is very into – she is very much a girly-girl, so I carefully selected every toy I purchased! Something I don’t love is how much toys can cost. Those suckers add up so quickly! Lucky for Lily, I never ever buy anything full price, so I was able to get some phenomenal deals. I tell you, shopping early is the key!

Without further adieu, here is Lily’s Christmas Gift List… totaling $104.93! If I would have had to pay for it all, it would be over $300 and that was at sale prices!

Doc McStuffins Table and Chairs – $20

Little People Aladdin Flying Carpet – Free

Doc McStuffins V-Tech Clipboard – Free

Doc McStuffins Microphone – Free

Vegetable velcro cutting set and boards – Free

Rapunzel high heels – Free

Melissa and Doug Cookie Sheet Set – Free

Rapunzel doll – Free

Sleeping Beauty DVD – $23.99

Goofy Stuffed Animal – Free

Belle and Beast Little People Set – $4.99

2 pair of Disney Pajamas – $4.99 each

Doc McStuffins Operation Game – $19.99

Gone Fishing Game – $4.99

Sophia Tea Party Game – $4.99

Hook Playset – Free

Ariel Pajamas – Free

Cinderella Shirt – Free

Little Critters Book – $6.00

Disney Jr. Book – $6.00

Stitch Ornament – Free

Sophia the First Ornament – Free

Total – $104.93

As you can see, this kid is not being neglected, is still getting her favorite characters and toys, and I didn’t have to break the bank!

So how did I get all of those free things? Well first let me tell you that only two things on this whole list did I pay full price for: The Doc McStuffins Operation game and Sleeping Beauty on DVD. I will also tell you this, I *thought* the operation game was only $8.88 on black Friday, but apparently the Doc version was not included. The signage was terrible and I tried to get Wal-Mart to honor the fact that the game was in the $8.88 section, but they would not. I almost did not buy it, but knew it would be a big hit for Lily so I went ahead and purchased it. I will also tell you that I only shop at Wal-Mart once a year for their Thanksgiving sale, but after this year, I don’t think I will be back. I didn’t feel their sales were anything spectacular! The Sleeping Beauty DVD came from our Disney Move Club membership and truthfully we only got it because I forgot to decline it. I knew Lily would love it, so I kept it for her! Everything else, including the free items, I got on sale!

The Doc McStuffins Clipboard is my favorite deal because I “worked” for it! I used my swagbacks rewards to accumulate Amazon gift cards and ordered it there. The Goofy doll and Hook playset were BOGO at the Disney Store and everything else free was because I used gift cards we got for Lily’s Birthday that I saved!

To top it all off, I am getting $7.50 back from E Bates for ordering everything – so basically for all of the free things I got, I am making $7.50! Now that’s my idea of shopping!

Stay tuned for how to make money and save money on your every-day life and especially at Christmas! If you aren’t doing these things, you are doing it wrong!!!

For those of you that remember A Tale of Nine Tires, the last time we purchased tires was in the winter of 2012. In some states, tires may last a long time, but with rough PA winters, tons of rain, and very little highway driving, two years is a good amount of time for tires. Our tires were… well, bald!

So obviously we failed inspection due to bald tires. I long to move back to Florida where there are no inspections and you can’t get fined for trying to make it another month when money is not so tight to get new tires. But anyway, we were left trying to get the best price possible. I had our budget completely worked around our upcoming Disney trip, that I’m not really sure we can afford but are doing anyway!

Point of the story — we called Monro Muffler, who did our tires in 2012 because they had a 40,000 mile warranty. We only put 19,000 miles on the car since then, so we expected at least half off new tires. We NEEDED half off new tires, as we didn’t budget for brakes or tires this month! The little punk manager, who was there for like a day, told me the best he could do was $20 off per tire on $85 tires. Umm… no, not having it! My husband was the one who handled the initial contact, and I love him to death, but he doesn’t have a fighting bone in his body! I am the negotiator, the one who gets things done around here.

I had him call back (I was sick and didn’t have the fight, but I could guide him) and *surprise* there was a new manager already! He said he definitely thought he could give us half off, but we would need to make an appointment and bring down the car. No problemo! I told him that we would see what they had to say, but if they wouldn’t honor the 1/2 off for tire tread warranty, I’m not going to get new tires with another warranty they won’t honor. I would rather pay someone else who would.

We took the car down the Monro and he said he would call us before he did anything with a final price. About 40 minutes later, he called to tell us our total would be $244 for all 4 tires and road hazard warranty. After Kevin popped a tire a week after we bought it last time, we will ALWAYS get road hazard!!!! Sold. Put them on, we’ll be down in an hour to get the car.

So we venture back to Monro to get the car and the manager said, I want you to know I really took care of you. Those tires were pretty bad. He put us in a better tire, with road hazard for… wait for it… $75 total! $75 out the freaking door!

I almost died. I wanted to cry and hug this man! We never seem to catch a brake on car things like this and this was such a wonderful surprise!

Except for the punk who is no longer there, Monro has always been a wonderful place to deal with regarding our cars. I started going there in 2007 and, except for the few times we’ve had to go to the dealership, we have always had a wonderful experience with them! I know every location is different, but especially for my friends in our area, I highly recommend taking your cars there for service. Nice, easy to deal with, willing to work with your budget and honest.

One of my favorite blogs that I read for inspiration is Money Saving Mom (moneysavingmom.com). One thing I love is she sets weekly goals to accomplish and keeps her readers up to date when she finishes them. It’s amazing how many of us want and try to accomplish the same things.

We moved into a new house two weeks ago. And I don’t love it. I’m not sure if it’s because I had my heart set on buying this time around or if I truly just don’t love the house itself, but I am having an awful time getting used to it. It is so bad that I cannot focus on anything… my job, my kid, putting anything away. I didn’t even set up my office because it depresses me (and the room is beautiful and big and bright!) So, I’m really hoping that by setting a goal list I can get back on track and back into life!

Home/Personal Goals:

1. Pick one room and finish it, really making it mine

2. Clean out Lily’s clothes and toys and get rid of what we don’t need and want

3. Get Lily on a bedtime routine at the new house that includes reading and going to be by herself

6. Spend one evening a week with Kevin after Lily goes to bed, not watching TV

7. Finalize our family budget and work on next month’s expenses

Professional Goals:

8. Start making my blog a priority

9. Learn how to set up gallery pages and complete one each week

10. Line up my business expenses and make sure we are allocating our money correctly

So, that’s a start. It proves difficult to get a lot done when Kevin has busy work weeks where games take up his evenings and I have to accomplish everything myself, but we have made it work for this long, so I’m sure once we get back in the swing of things, all will settle down. I have a terrible habit of taking on too much at once and then failing at everything, so I think if I set good goals I will be able to reach them!

What are your weekly goals and how do you stay on track to accomplish them?

The summer is coming to an end and here in the Taylor household, we are rejoicing. Don’t get me wrong, we all LOVE summer, but after taking a new job that has a two month pay delay, summer meant some creative finances and some serious struggles I thought we would never overcome (but we totally did!)

This new season ahead is officially going to be called The Taylor Family Financial overhaul! I spent the summer doing more accounting than I ever did while working in a business office! I have analyzed and spread-sheeted our lives down to a single penny. And what I realized is, we just can’t live like this anymore!

We started our lives together in debt, taking out a personal loan to move to Florida, and I am determined to not live our lives paycheck to paycheck anymore just to keep up with everyone around us. What is so difficult is that most of our monthly expenses we can do nothing about. We have two high car payments that are not going to be paid off this year. I am HOPING we can pay one off early next year, but that may be a big stretch depending on how the year plays out. This is a big challenge and change for our family, so we are definitely going to need some encouragement!

One thing that is for sure is that we are going to be living on a shoestring budget, on purpose, and throwing everything extra to debt! One of the hardest things for me is giving up vacations, as I truly believe you learn more and get more out of experiences rather than material items! I am going to TRY really hard to complete as many Swagbucks surveys as I can, shop through Ebates when I need to order something online and try every other way possible to have a little extra so that we can get to Disney this year! We have been so lucky to have so many free, or almost free, trips in the past two years, we have been too spoiled to give it up!

I hope you join us on our journey, and as this blog takes a little shift. I am so passionate about this right now for everyone! Hop on board!

And if you have any tips and tricks to not make this transition so awful, I’d love to hear them!!!

It is unbelievably easy to spend a ridiculous amount on Easter, making it seem more like Christmas than the simple Easter bunny. We are a no candy family at this point because Lily is only 18 months so she does not need the sugar. I also grew up with only one piece of white chocolate (my favorite), a pack of peeps and a little bag of robin’s eggs. I did get many small presents and, truthfully, I didn’t miss the candy! I plan to do the same with our kids.

This is where the spending gets hard. It is so easy to over-compensate for not hitting the traditional Easter basket candy haul that I feel like Lily needs a million things in her basket. To battle this, we set a $25 limit for Easter. This is probably a high limit for a small holiday and will go down as she gets older, but it is hard to keep “baby” things cheap and still fill her basket.

And, like always, I went overboard. I didn’t overspend – in fact I was UNDER the $25 limit, but Lily got a huge haul. Thanks to coupons and shopping ahead, here is what our kid scored:

Here is the breakdown:

The Princess tent – $4.75 (Originally $20 marked down to $5 and then 5% off at Target) bought in mid-January

3 coloring books – $2.25 ($0.85 each with a 10% off Cartwheel and an additional 5% off using my redcard at Target)

Fairy Wings – $0.85 (10% off Cartwheel and an additional 5% off using my Redcard at Target)

Crayons – $0.99

4 pairs of Disney Jr. Socks – $3.40 ($0.85 each with 10% off Cartwheel and an additonal 5% off using my Redcard at Target)

Disney Princess sidewalk chalk – %0.50 at Walgreens at the end of summer last year

Sophia Hairbrush – $1.00 Toys R Us

Frozen Anna and Elsa plate – $3.50 Target

Gerber Forks – $2.99 Target

Sophia camera – $3.00 Target

TOTAL – $23.23

As you can see, I spend the majority of my shopping time at Target and I score some incredible deals there! The key for me is to shop early… like as in a year early! They had some seriously cute Easter baskets at Target and it was really hard to not splurge to get Lily one. I use my old Bunny basket (never realized how creepy the bunny looks!) but I would like her to have her own. Looks like I’ll hit that up later this week when they are all on super markdown! I will also look for some small Easter things for next year’s basket – a stuffed animal with bunny ears, small Disney Princess toys, things like that. They go 70-90% off at Target and I will just put them in a bin in our basement until next year! Saves a TON of money to shop ahead! Also a great idea for stocking stuffers if the items aren’t holiday specific.

I did put three pair of PJs and a flamingo dress in the basket also, but I didn’t really buy those as presents, she needed the pj’s and I needed her to have the dress because it is beyond amazingly cute. So I didn’t count those into my totals as I was buying them regardless, I only put them in to fill her second basket.

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Welcome! If this is your first time here, I invite you to visit the about me page to learn more about our family! We are a budget-minded, coupon-friendly family working hard to add a little magic into our everyday lives! Read More…